The two clients I counselled included a 19-year-old male who lives with his parents. He reported to be feeling dizzy occasionally. He was not able to engage in anything meaningful like before. He has sleepless nights and does not feel like doing anything. The doctor had given him some medication to manage his elevated blood levels, which were the main cause of dizziness. The doctor also gave him Lexapro, advising him to take it daily is to manage his depression. Even though his family and friends who visit him frequently support him, he is experiencing depression because he lost his job and has been forced to live with his parents; he feels he cannot provide enough to cater for himself.
The second client was a 20-year-old black America who lives alone; he separated from his girlfriend and has been feeling low since then. He lives alone in a small apartment and works for a computer firm. He reported having lost interesting daily activities including going to work and have lost appetite (Toussaint et al., 2020). He spends most of the time alone and avoids social gatherings. He is currently taking Effexor to manage his depressive symptoms. The doctor advised him to take small meals after four hours to improve his eating. However, his condition has not improved because he lacks someone to take to and share his feelings since his girlfriend left him. He does not have any close family members or friends. This makes him feel lonely.
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Using the DSM-5, explain and justify your diagnosis for this client.
The first client is expressing psychological issues because he is worried about his financial status. Over the past weeks he feels depresses and feels hopeless for not being able to perform simple duties around the house. This is what made his parents advise him to seek psychiatric treatment. According to the DSM-5criteria he is suffering from severe depression because of specific symptoms like loss of appetite (Toussaint et al., 2020), which is evident in some of the symptoms he displays. He feels helpless because of his sickness. He is experiencing sleepless nights this is a criterion common among those with severe depression Bouwkamp, Afawi & Kushner, 2019), because he worries too much about his wife and the future of his farm.
The second client is expressing severe depression because of a broken relationship. As a result, he has lost appetite and lost hope in doing anything. He feels like giving up and at work, he keeps to himself seated on his desk without doing anything. This is one of the concerns that made his supervisor refer him for counselling. The second client has mood depression because he feels hopeless and lost appetite. He cannot perform his daily duties because he feels low. He feels lonely and unloved, leading to depression.
Explain any legal and/or ethical implications related to counselling this client
One of the major legal complications in counselling the two clients is confidentiality, especially in a group session. The fact the clients share sensitive information with other group members, not even one will maintain confidentiality (Wheeler & Bertram, 2019). Other group members might share information about others with their family members or their friends, which makes the group counselling more challenging to manage.
References
Bouwkamp, C. G., Afawi, Z., & Kushner, S. A. (2019). Clinical Genetic Testing and Counseling
in Psychiatry. In Clinical Genome Sequencing (pp. 181-202). Academic Press.
Toussaint, A., Hüsing, P., Kohlmann, S., & Löwe, B. (2020). Detecting DSM-5 somatic
symptom disorder: criterion validity of the Patient Health Questionnaire-15 (PHQ-15)
and the Somatic Symptom Scale-8 (SSS-8) in combination with the Somatic Symptom
Disorder–B Criteria Scale (SSD-12). Psychological medicine , 50 (2), 324-333.
Wheeler, A. M., & Bertram, B. (2019). The counselor and the law: A guide to legal and ethical
practice . John Wiley & Sons.
